What do you do when you homeschool, love rats and volunteer for a co-op? Why you bring your rats to class when you are reading Charlotte's Web. I am so excited to introduce several 7-12 year old's to our love of ratties. We will be bringing OCRA Pongo, OCRA Galileo and maybe OCRA Foggy. The trio will give the kids a great understanding of 'lazy' rat boys but I will be bringing a bit of banana to show them their LOVE of food and hopefully get them to do a few tricks. We are right at the part of the book where Templeton has sneaked into the State Fair to help Charlotte find more words to weave for Wilbur's pen. Cannot wait to see how the kids react to the boys Friday! |
Quick update and a few pictures
The talk about rats went well. We had a lot of fun talking about all the different 'rat facts'. I threw in a few extras - nocturnal verses crepuscular and diurnal. How lazy our boys are verses the girls, which shows how great the author captured Templeton in the story. We talked about the average one pound in the wild verse the weights of our boys at ALMOST 2 pounds! We also talked about genetics and how they come in so many different colors. They got to see our great video of Pongo's 3 week old babies and the video of our CRUS Christina boggling. Of course told them the importance of handsanitizer before and after each rattie. We also wanted to make sure the boys felt comfortable with each student. We gave each one a snuggly to hold them in at first after about 10 minutes they all wanted them on their laps. So the boys got to be snuggled on even more! Of course I did have to warn them that without the covers they may go potty. Sure enough Pongo was getting figidity and wanted to get off to go potty in his box but I was too late. OOPS! good thing I brought handwipes too. This was something I could do so much more often. I loved seeing the kids fall in love the little vermin.